Anyone that knows me knows that I'm a crazy financial nerd. I love crunching the numbers and figuring out how I can save here or there. Luckily I married a man who not only tolerates my love of excel spreadsheets but embraces my need to number crunch.
That being said the biggest expenditure in our house, after rent, is food. When we switched over to eating more Paleo/Whole30 style I was worried it would affect our budget. So I did what any number crunching nerd would do. I set a budget and tracked my expenses to see how I would do.
The results were that I wasn't really spending more money eating paleo then I was eating a regular standard american diet. I actually found I was spending more for quality meat but less for snack food. Overall I've been able to eat healthy, delicious food for around $400-$500 per month. Now I know to some that may seem like a lot but we don't eat out and we are constantly feeding friends and family so it's not always just the two of us.
One trick I use is to try to spread meat out to two or three meals. Like slow cooking chicken breasts or a pork or chuck roast, shredding it, and then using the meat in a taco dish one night and stir-fry the next.
Another great tip is to shop at Aldi. Now I know that not everything is great at Aldi but you can find some great stuff there for way cheaper than the grocery store. (See my salsa shout-out from yesterday.)
All in all though I find if you glance at the fliers before you leave and make your meals so that they are dinner and lunch the next day, you can stretch your budget pretty far. I feel confident that if I was just feeding myself I could probably do a month of paleo for around $200.
So what do you budget for food? Has your food budget increased with eating paleo?
(Also if anyone is interested I love the Dave Ramsey model of personal finance and it is basically what we follow in our house. Also check out his podcast on itunes, its a great motivator.)
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